Baylor All Saints Medical Center at Fort Worth Expands Organ Transplant Surgical Team
Contact: Mary Johnson, 817-922-7088 or Sunny Drenik, 817-922-7100Email: Maryjohn@baylorhealth.edu or Sunnydr@baylorhealth.edu
(FORT WORTH, Texas, December 18, 2006) - Nicholas Onaca, M.D., has become a member of the medical staff at Baylor All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth, and part of the facility's solid organ transplant team.
Dr. Onaca specializes in general and transplantation surgeries. Prior to joining Baylor All Saints Medical Center, Dr. Onaca was the attending surgeon for the department of organ transplantation and head of the pancreatic islet transplantation project at the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, Israel.
Dr. Onaca received his medical degree from the Carol Davilla University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania. His post-graduate medical education includes general surgery at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel, and transplant surgery at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel, where he received The Ministry of Health Award for Excellence in Service. Dr. Onaca moved to the United States in 2000 as a Fellow for the Liver Transplantation Surgical Fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. A year later he joined the transplant program at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas as a fellow in transplant surgery and continued his post-graduate work there with a Seeger Endowed Fellowship in Transplant Surgery and Islet Cell Transplantation. He is an avid contributor to various transplant publications in English, Hebrew and Romanian.
Since July 2002 when the transplant program began, the Fort Worth transplant team has performed more than 350 transplants including liver, kidney, and pancreas transplantation.
Earlier this year, Baylor All Saints opened its new 27-bed dedicated liver, kidney and pancreas transplant unit to accommodate acutely ill patients who need hospitalization prior to their transplant, as well as after their transplant surgery. Each patient room contains a separate, smaller living area to accommodate overnight stays by a family member; the nearby transplant education center and support group meeting room offer additional resources for family and staff use. The new unit replaced an existing transplant nursing unit, which the program had outgrown.
The not-for-profit Baylor All Saints Medical Centers serve more than 100,000 people annually through two hospitals, numerous primary care physician centers and practices, a rehabilitation and fitness center, and a variety of medical specialties. Programs of excellence in cardiology, transplantation, neurosciences, oncology and women's services form the heart of the hospitals' services. All Saints joined Baylor Health Care System in January 2002. All Saints Health Foundation, a separately incorporated not-for-profit organization, raises and manages charitable funds to support Baylor All Saints Medical Centers. For fiscal year 2005, Baylor Health Care System reported $314 million in community benefit to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Physicians are members of the medical staff at one of Baylor Health Care System's subsidiary, community or affiliated medical centers and are neither employees nor agents of those medical centers, Baylor All Saints Medical Center or Baylor Health Care System.